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Improving the interfacial property of carbon fiber/vinyl ester resin composite by grafting modification of sizing agent on carbon fiber surface

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Abstract

The poor interfacial adhesion between carbon fibers (CFs) and vinyl ester resin (VE) has seriously hampered the application of CFs/VE composites. In this work, the interfacial adhesion was efficiently enhanced by grafting acrylamide with epoxy sizing agent on CFs surface. The grafting reaction was feasible according to the thermodynamic calculation. The optimal grafting condition was 80 °C for 10 min based on the kinetic investigation by differential scanning calorimeter. Surface morphology and surface composition of modified carbon fibers (MCFs) were characterized, which indicated that acrylamide was grafted successfully on CFs surface and the surface roughness was increased slightly. After grafting, the interface shear strength of MCFs/VE composites was significantly improved by 86.96% and the interlaminar shear strength was enhanced by 55.61% due to the covalent bonds in interphase and the toughening effect of sizing gent. Moreover, the static and dynamic mechanical properties of composites with different interfacial adhesion were measured, which further confirmed the effect of the grafting modification.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the support of the High Performance Computing Center of the Harbin Institute of Technology. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China

    Weiwei Jiao & Wenbo Liu

  2. Center for Composite Materials and Structures, School of Astronautics, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150080, China

    Fan Yang, Long Jiang, Weicheng Jiao & Rongguo Wang

Authors
  1. Weiwei Jiao
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  2. Wenbo Liu
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  3. Fan Yang
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  4. Long Jiang
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  5. Weicheng Jiao
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  6. Rongguo Wang
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Correspondence to Wenbo Liu or Rongguo Wang.

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Jiao, W., Liu, W., Yang, F. et al. Improving the interfacial property of carbon fiber/vinyl ester resin composite by grafting modification of sizing agent on carbon fiber surface. J Mater Sci 52, 13812–13828 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1485-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1485-8

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